The Heretic’s Creed Read online

  Contents

  Cover

  A Selection of Titles by Fiona Buckley

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Prologue

  Chapter One: Spectre at the Wedding

  Chapter Two: A Perfectly Innocent Errand

  Chapter Three: Physician and Magician

  Chapter Four: The Raven’s Prophecy

  Chapter Five: Just a Family Party

  Chapter Six: Holyrood

  Chapter Seven: No Bigger Than A Man’s Hand

  Chapter Eight: The Uneasy Sanctuary

  Chapter Nine: Chanting in the Night

  Chapter Ten: The Beautiful Book

  Chapter Eleven: Light and Shadow

  Chapter Twelve: Dangerous Questions

  Chapter Thirteen: Menacing Whispers

  Chapter Fourteen: After Dark

  Chapter Fifteen: Salt and Lemon

  Chapter Sixteen: In Spate

  Chapter Seventeen: Turning Back

  Chapter Eighteen: Face to Face

  Chapter Nineteen: Mea Culpa

  Chapter Twenty: The Unexpected Ally

  Chapter Twenty-One: The Deputation

  Chapter Twenty-Two: Thorby at Bay

  Chapter Twenty-Three: Empowered to Bargain

  Chapter Twenty-Four: The Judgement of Philippa

  Chapter Twenty-Five: Consolation Prize

  A Selection of Titles by Fiona Buckley

  The Ursula Blanchard Mysteries

  THE ROBSART MYSTERY

  THE DOUBLET AFFAIR

  QUEEN’S RANSOM

  TO RUIN A QUEEN

  QUEEN OF AMBITION

  A PAWN FOR THE QUEEN

  THE FUGITIVE QUEEN

  THE SIREN QUEEN

  QUEEN WITHOUT A CROWN *

  QUEEN’S BOUNTY *

  A RESCUE FOR A QUEEN *

  A TRAITOR’S TEARS *

  A PERILOUS ALLIANCE *

  THE HERETIC’S CREED *

  * available from Severn House

  THE HERETIC’S CREED

  Fiona Buckley

  This ebook is copyright material and must not be copied, reproduced, transferred, distributed, leased, licensed or publicly performed or used in any way except as specifically permitted in writing by the publishers, as allowed under the terms and conditions under which it was purchased or as strictly permitted by applicable copyright law. Any unauthorised distribution or use of this text may be a direct infringement of the author’s and publisher’s rights and those responsible may be liable in law accordingly.

  First published in Great Britain and the USA 2016 by

  Crème de la Crime, an imprint of

  SEVERN HOUSE PUBLISHERS LTD of

  19 Cedar Road, Sutton, Surrey, England, SM2 5DA.

  This eBook edition first published in 2016 by Severn House Digital

  an imprint of Severn House Publishers Limited

  Trade paperback edition first published

  in Great Britain and the USA 2017 by

  SEVERN HOUSE PUBLISHERS LTD

  Copyright © 2016 by Fiona Buckley.

  The right of Fiona Buckley to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs & Patents Act 1988.

  British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data

  A CIP catalogue record for this title is available from the British Library.

  ISBN-13: 978-1-78029-091-1 (cased)

  ISBN-13: 978-1-78029-574-9 (trade paper)

  ISBN-13: 978-1-78010-823-0 (e-book)

  Except where actual historical events and characters are being described for the storyline of this novel, all situations in this publication are fictitious and any resemblance to living persons is purely coincidental.

  This ebook produced by

  Palimpsest Book Production Limited,

  Falkirk, Stirlingshire, Scotland

  PROLOGUE

  It was midnight and cloudy and the room at the back of Stonemoor House would have been dark even with the shutters wide open. They were however firmly closed, not to keep light out, but to keep it in. No late-night wanderer on the moor, no shepherd guarding his sheep, no poacher out after illicit game, no prowling insomniac who had left his bed in the village of Thorby must realize that the inhabitants of Stonemoor were anywhere but respectably in their own beds.

  The room was large and the darkness so intense that even four triple-branched candlesticks couldn’t hold enough candles to overcome it and Abbess Philippa Gould (who was not an abbess at all, but had merely appropriated the title) could not tell, when looking at the huddle of cowled and black-robed figures before her, whether or not they were all there. Therefore, she called the roll.

  ‘Bella Yates.’ Bella was a senior in the household because she was Philippa’s natural sister. Otherwise, she would have been near the end of the list. She had been reared by her mother, an unlettered woman on a remote farm. Bella was literate now because Philippa herself had taught her to read and write, though Philippa had sometimes had cause to regret it. Bella was still essentially as ignorant and superstitious as her mother had been. She was also both opinionated and truculent. Her ‘Yes, I’m here,’ was spoken in a broad Yorkshire accent and also in an uncooperative tone that made her sister frown.

  ‘Angelica Ames.’ Angelica was as dignified and as well-educated as Philippa herself. She could read Latin and Greek as easily as English and also spoke both French and Italian. Her parents had made a poor job of naming her, however, for she in no way resembled an angel, being tall, gaunt, and unsmiling, with watchful eyes, as dark as the thick waves of her hair, which continually escaped from under her veil.

  ‘Present,’ she said, in her deep voice.

  ‘Margaret Beale.’

  ‘Yes, my lady.’ Margaret was small and timid but the equal of Philippa and Angelica in her accomplishments. She, Angelica, Bella, and Philippa were the original founders of the household. All the rest had come later.

  The roll call went on, the choir nuns (as Philippa insisted on calling them, though they sang only in this back room and only when they didn’t think they could be overheard) being named first, in alphabetical order.

  ‘Marie Chartley … Susanne Leblanc … Jean McNab … Eleanor Overton … Daisy Pendlebury … Katherine Trayne … Jane Wellingdale …’

  Then those who were regarded as lay sisters. ‘Katy Greene … Mary Haxby … Cat Marshall … Annie Peel … Annette Turner.

  ‘Good. We are all here.’ Philippa stepped into the pool of light cast by the candles, which were all on a table in the middle of the room. Also on the table were a small knife with a silver handle and a gleaming blade, a little phial of what looked like water, and a box made of walnut wood, about eighteen inches long by ten inches wide and six inches deep. Philippa undid its brass clasp and put the lid back, revealing that the box held a book, beautifully bound in white leather with a title and an intricate pattern on the front in gold leaf.

  ‘Our purpose tonight,’ said Philippa, ‘is to strengthen the protection that a past generation, so it is said, has already placed upon this book. For who is to know what really, truly happened or was done in a vanished century? I propose to make sure that it has really, truly happened, so as to defend this remarkable thing from the harm that some people undoubtedly wish it …’

  ‘It’s evil.’ The protesting voice was Bella’s. It did shake a little, because she was at one and the same time defying both her abbess and her stately and dominant elder sister Philippa, whose cool grey eyes could, as Bella had sometimes resentfully said, freeze the very blood in one’s veins with a single glance. But passionate feeling could overcome that and Bella did indeed feel passionately. ‘It is full of strange lore from the infidel lands in the eas
t!’ she said fiercely. ‘About stars and planets and arithmetic, which is close to witchcraft! And it talks of the Earth circling the Sun, which is wicked heresy according to the teaching of our mother Church, and worse, there is a drawing, disrespectful to the Holy Father. Insulting him! Making fun! Nothing in that book is decent reading for Christians! It’s heathen and … and blasphemous! It should be destroyed!’

  There were some murmurs of agreement, most, though not all, from among those who were classified as lay sisters. Philippa sighed.

  ‘This volume contains most valuable lore,’ she said, with determined calm. ‘During the short time I spent at home with my father, after I was widowed, he talked to me about such things. He was interested in matters of science and he had learned of the theories of a man called Nicolaus Copernicus, who claimed that the Earth does indeed circle the Sun, and by means of diagrams, showed that this theory made sense. My father would have liked to correspond with him, but Copernicus died over thirty years ago. However, with my father, I studied the theory and concluded that it is probably true. Our Church, our priesthood, no matter how much we respect them, are not always in the right, can at times be very much in the wrong, blind to proven facts …’

  ‘They are never in the wrong. They can’t be in the wrong!’ snapped Bella.

  ‘Our mutual father,’ said Philippa, ‘considered it wise and right to keep the laws of Elizabeth as far as possible, even though the Pope has told us not to obey her. Are you saying that Father was wrong to say that?’

  ‘Yes!’ said Bella.

  ‘Well, this is not the time or the place to argue about it.’ Philippa could see them all being sidetracked when it was vital that they should concentrate on the matter in hand. ‘Many of you simply do not understand these things and therefore cannot pronounce on them, and that, Bella, includes you. I repeat, it is said that in the past, because this book needed to be defended against those who thought as you – and some others here – apparently do, a wise Christian priest laid a curse on anyone who harmed it. He did so at the request of the family who then owned it. He did it because he, like the family – your family, Eleanor – recognized that it was valuable, whatever it might contain, because it is an exquisitely made medieval manuscript book, delicately illuminated, a wondrous example of the skill of monkish scribes.’

  ‘And what kind of monks were they, who copied and illustrated such a book, and drew that wicked picture?’ demanded Bella irrepressibly.

  Plump, fair Eleanor Overton, who had joined the community only two weeks before, said: ‘It is true, Mother, that in my family, there is a tradition about that curse. It is said that it was laid, though no one knows when. I for one believe it.’

  ‘You may well be right,’ said Philippa. ‘But I wish to make it certain. Here, this night, in this place, I shall renew the curse.’

  There was a silence. An October wind, blowing across the moors, rattled the shutters and a draught crept into the room, making the candle flames quiver and lean sideways, and stirring the shadows that the gathering cast on the panelled walls. Someone caught a nervous breath. Philippa let the tense moment grow yet more tense. Such an atmosphere was precisely what she wanted to create. It was imperative that somehow she must generate belief, compel a shuddering acceptance of what she was about to do. Only then could it have the desired effect.

  The trouble was, she had no idea at all how to do it. Some of the priests of Holy Church knew but she did not. She had to invent.

  When she felt that the silence had lasted long enough, she took the book from its box and laid it on the table. Then she picked up the phial, holding it up so that the candlelight shone upon it.

  ‘This is water,’ she said. ‘But it is holy water. Our good priest, Walter Cogge, whom all the world believes to be our bailiff and groom, has blessed it for us. He knows what I am about this night. He is a learned and a wise man. He did not wish to officiate – he has never pronounced a curse, he said, and does not wish to do so – but he understands why I think it necessary, and is leaving the task to me. I have summoned you all here to be witnesses.’

  Someone said: ‘Shouldn’t it be done by bell, book, and candle? We have candles but no bell, and what about the book? It can’t be that one. Shouldn’t it be the Bible?’

  ‘I’m not exorcizing anything,’ said Philippa irritably. ‘I am cursing. That’s different. Quiet, please!’

  There were more murmurs, a mingling of surprise, approval, and disquiet and once more, Philippa let the tension grow for a moment or two, before continuing.

  ‘I lay this curse,’ she said, in the resounding tones of one whose voice had been trained in both singing and speech, ‘on any who would do harm to this book, on any who would destroy or deface it. Cursed you shall be, firstly by water …’ she poured a little from the phial into the palm of her hand and then splashed it on to the white-leather cover of the book ‘… and secondly by fire …’ The gathering gasped as she lifted the book and put a corner of it into a candle flame. She withdrew the book at once and set it down. The burned corner glowed faintly and then went out, leaving a tiny blackened tip behind.

  ‘And thirdly, I curse you with blood drawn by steel,’ said Philippa. She held the little knife up in the candlelight. It shone softly on the silver hilt but flashed flame-coloured and sinister on the small sharp blade. With evident difficulty and a shiver of dislike, she drew the blade across her left thumb, firmly enough to draw blood. Now it was the thumb that she held in the candlelight so that they could all see the dark line across it. She lowered her hand and smeared blood on to the top edge of the cover, transferring a little stain.

  Then, laying her right hand on the cover and raising her left in the air, she said, in yet more ringing tones, ‘I hereby declare that by holy water and fire and steel-drawn blood, I dedicate this book, Observations of the Heavens by John of Evesham, to the care of God. From this day forth, it is His, and may His wrath will fall upon on any that wilfully harm it. In His name, I call upon water, fire, and steel to exact vengeance on such a one and I seal the curse with my own blood. In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost, I curse any who touch this book with intent to injure it!’

  As she fell silent, she wiped her left thumb quickly on her dark-blue robe and then she lifted the book once more and held it high, letting them see it clearly, letting the curse resound in their ears, letting the air quiver with it. To her satisfaction, she heard a few jittery whimpers and even – excellent! – a frightened sob from someone. Then she laid the book gently back into its box and closed the lid. The brass latch clicked home with a soft, final sound.

  ‘This work is now complete,’ she said in her normal voice. ‘Our good priest Walter Cogge is waiting to say Mass for us, before we retire to our beds. He will be here very shortly. No matins will be sung tonight. My daughters, make no mistake! There is a curse now on any of you who harm this most precious volume of lore and I would advise you, all of you, not even to think about harming it, let alone carrying thought into action. Who knows how far the curse will stretch? Remember that God knows the secrets of all hearts.’

  Her eyes, by now, were well adjusted to the bad light. She scanned their faces, so many pale countenances, oval, square, or triangular, framed in wimples and veils, shadowed by the dark cowls. She was pleased to see fear in many of the eyes that looked back at her, and, in some of them, tears.

  It would do. She did not think that anyone here would dare to touch this precious volume.

  The curse need not hold for too long, anyway. She had plans for John of Evesham’s Observations of the Heavens. The illicit little community at Stonemoor House was always short of money.

  ONE

  Spectre at the Wedding

  It was a happy wedding and a wonderfully successful marriage breakfast, and it all took place on a beautiful day. Early February in that year of 1577 was pretending to be May, with dazzling sunshine and soft winds, a glorious contrast to the January storms just behind us.

>   My ward Kate Ferguson, who had that morning become Mistress Eric Lake, was seated beside her new husband at the top table in the great hall of Hawkswood House, and she was as lovely as the day. Her cream silk gown and the amber and topaz jewellery that she and I had chosen together suited her dark hair and her brown eyes so well, and subtly flattered her smooth young skin. I sighed a little, looking at her. I had once had a skin as good as that, but I was now approaching my forty-third birthday and my mirror told me, all too clearly, that time and trouble had left their marks.

  At Kate’s side, young Master Lake also looked splendid in his blue velvet doublet with its big puffed sleeves and cream slashings. Eric Lake had a Norwegian grandmother, which accounted not only for his Norwegian Christian name, but also for his looks. He was as fair-haired and blue-eyed as the Vikings were said to have been and had the permanent bronze of a man who spends time out of doors. He was a handsome fellow altogether and a cheerful one. The blue eyes sparkled as he whispered something into Kate’s ear, and Kate laughed as she replied to him. They had liked each other from the moment they were introduced.

  The feast was satisfactory too. My large and opinionated cook John Hawthorn had, as usual on special occasions, managed to take most of the decisions over what to serve, and with the help of his second in command, Ben Flood, he had created wonders. We were dining on roast mutton, capons stuffed with chopped and highly spiced liver and kidneys, and duck in a citrus sauce, as well as fresh fish from our own lake, preceded by a rich vegetable soup and hot fresh bread, with elaborate desserts to follow. Hawthorn and Flood had done marvels with spun sugar and marchpane.

  Since the death of my husband Hugh a few years ago, John Hawthorn had sometimes complained that we didn’t entertain often enough. His skills weren’t being fully used, he said. In preparing this feast, he had had the time of his life and he and my steward, tall, silver-haired Adam Wilder, were further enjoying themselves by bringing in each course in style, leading the way and playing fanfares on bugles, while my manservant Roger Brockley, together with Ben Flood and the maidservants Phoebe, Margery, and Lucy, bore the dishes in behind them.